Myanmar refugees flee in rickety boats after sectarian clashes

Rohingya Muslims, trying to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh to escape sectarian violence in Myanmar, look on from an intercepted boat in Teknaf on June 13, 2012. Bangladeshi guards have turned back 16 boats carrying more than 660 Rohingya people, most of them women and children, since June 11.

Major Shafiqur Rahman of the Bangladesh Border Guard told Reuters by phone that 110 Rohingyas in three boats had landed in Teknaf on the southern tip of the Bangladesh mainland in the early hours of Wednesday. The two countries are separated in the area by a river that flows into the Bay of Bengal.

Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are seen on a boat while they try to get into Bangladesh, as members of the Border Guard of Bangladesh (BGB) try to push them back out in Teknaf on June 13, 2012. The UN Refugee Office (UNHCR) has called on Bangladesh to keep its borders open given the rapid escalation of violence in the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters on Tuesday.

Munir uz Zaman / AFP - Getty Images

Rohingya Muslims look on from an intercepted boat in Teknaf on June 13, 2012.